rare
emberlite
sold as "yooperlite" · nobody spotted them until 2017
The tell
In daylight it is an unremarkable gray rock, and no amount of looking will tell you. It takes a 365nm UV torch after dark, and then the sodalite veins blaze orange.
365nm specifically, because the cheap 395nm torches barely work. Muskallonge Lake State Park in Luce County is the beach to start on. Grand Marais works too, but it sits right against the Pictured Rocks boundary and that line is not painted on the sand, so know where you are before you fill a pocket. The glow is a scatter of blebs and short veins, never a bolt across the whole stone.
What it gets mistaken for
The facts
- also calledsold as (yooperlite) · nobody had spotted them on a Michigan beach until 2017
- age~1.1 billion yrs
- where it turns upMuskallonge Lake SP, Luce Co. · the Pictured Rocks line is not marked on the sand · 365nm UV
- the field mark365nm UV after dark · orange veins flare
Yooperlites is a registered trademark of Erik Rintamaki (US Reg. 5750169). This chart calls the stone emberlite; the trademarked name is noted so you can search for it.
10% of every order goes to northern Michigan animal shelters.